Photography, Money and Love

I love coming up with funny stock photo ideas...like Elephants in starting blocks!

Love, Passion and Photography

A friend of mine, fellow photographer Tanya Constantine, left a message for me on my Facebook page in which she lamented that there is too much emphasis on the money aspect of photography, not enough on the love and passion for the art. I was reflecting on that as I drove home from my studio this evening.

The Enjoyment of Creating Stock Images

I spent the day creating stock images, including the elephant in the starting blocks at the top of this blog. I was doing it for the money. But I do love the work as well. I love coming up with ideas, ideas that will amuse and at the same time deliver a message, a commercial message no less. I love the process of putting my images together, the planning, the photography and the Photoshop work. I love finishing an image and just plain enjoying it.

Money As A Measurement

The money, however, is also important, and in several in a couple of ways. Obviously, I want to maintain a certain standard of living, put some away for when I reach the point where I can’t work as much…or even don’t want to work as much. And the money is important in another way too. It is a measure of my abilities, a yardstick by which I can judge my progress. For better or worse, I take pride in the fact that I can make money at photography, and yes, it makes me feel good about myself.

How Can I Make Money With My Photos?

One often hears, or reads, that this photographer or that photographer would do their work whether they were being paid or not. I often wondered if that were true of me. I really don’t know. I do love creating images, but seldom create ones that won’t earn me money.  Even on vacation or traveling I will find myself reaching for my camera when a potential shot catches my attention, and yet I am always wondering if and how I can make money with the shot. I have foregone some pretty cool shots because I couldn’t see how I could make money with them.

Wasted Images

Part of my thinking goes that if I don’t have a market for the image it will be wasted. No one will see it. I have so many images that know one will ever see, some really great ones too. But I don’t have the time, or I suppose, the inclination, to get them online, to enter shows, to make prints (and where would I hang those prints?), to get them in front of an audience.

Sharing Images, And Making Money

Just thinking out loud here. I am interested in why I take the approach I do, but I certainly am not unduly bothered my how I operate. As I said, I do enjoy what I do. I love making my images. I love sharing my images, be they funny elephant pictures, silly cat photos, or businessmen in odd, funny and precarious situations. I to confess though, I really love making money off of my images too.

Can I Make Money With Cafepress.com?

My best selling image on Cafepress.com, funny animals in a Veterinarian's waiting room!

Cafepress.com: Potential and Disappointment

To date one of my biggest disappointments with my whole Internet monetization strategy is my Cafepress.com shop. The potential seems so enormous that I feel I must not give up on it just yet. In this blog post I will share some of my experience, thoughts and strategy in regards to cafepress.com and to print-on-demand opportunities in general.

A Cafepress.com Experiment

I started the Cafepress.com experiment about three years ago, but I have only put a couple of hundred hours into it. It seems like a lot more time because of the drudgery factor! By the time all is said and done it really takes somewhere between 2 and 3 hours per image to get everything sized, cropped, entered, key worded and so forth. But that is the easy part.

My Best Selling Cafepress.com Image

Without actually counting, I think I have about fifty of my funny animal pictures up on my Cafepress.com storefront (I have a “premium” store).  My best selling Cafepress.com image is one of various pets sitting in a veterinarian’s waiting room. Now why a scene featuring a group of miserable animals waiting to see a vet is popular…well, you got me! It sells as greeting cards, on clocks, wall décor (framed prints), T-shirts, mouse pads, clocks (clocks)?)…all kinds of things. Maybe veterinarians are the ones buying these products. But for my best selling, Cafepress.com image to have brought in, what, maybe two hundred and fifty dollars over the last three years? It hardly seems worth the effort!

Cafepress.com Success Stories

Another troubling aspect is that when I search for things like “Cafepress.com Success Stories”, or “How I Made A Fortune With Cafepress.com”, or any other similar phrase I can think of, nothing of substance comes up. Sure, Cafepress.com claims that there are people who make $100,000.00 a year…but as far as I can tell they don’t give any concrete examples. I can find people who share that they made $17.56 last month, or that they are making enough to go out for drinks once-in-a-while, but I cannot find people who are sharing what I consider to be success through their print-on-demand experiences. To me, less than $1,000,00 per month just doesn’t cut it, but I guess success is in the eye of the beholder. Disclaimer: I have spent very little time in Cafepress.com chat rooms or forums. Maybe I am missing something here?

How Much Money Can I Make With Cafepress?

Well, last year I made $802.00 on 469 sales with Cafepress.com. Not a whole lot of return, but to be honest, not a whole lot of effort either. The real effort for Cafepress.com is in driving traffic to your storefront. A lot of people believe they can build a home-based business that will support them using Cafepress.com. I think that the examples of people succeeding at creating a viable business that will support them on Cafepress.com, or I suppose Zazzle or any of the print-on-demand business models, must be extremely rare. Building the quantity of traffic needed to generate significant revenue from a print-on-demand business is extremely difficult and will take years, many years. If any of you reading this know of any examples of people have succeeded at that task in any significant way, please share it with us!

Is Cafepress.com Worth It?

So is cafepress.com worth it? I don’t know the answer to that, but I can speculate. I believe it is a mistake to think that simply putting products up on cafepress.com can bring in any significant money. To be successful on cafepress.com, and I have seen this mentioned time and again in the numerous online articles and forums about how to succeed with Cafepress.com, you have to drive the traffic to your shop. Without a commitment to driving traffic to your storefront, you just won’t make much money. On the other hand, if I am correct about my theories, if I can drive substantial traffic to my cafepress.com storefront, then the income will definitely be worth the few hundred hours invested in putting the images up. The huge potential audience of people who might buy a coffee mug, a print, or an apron from Cafepress.com tantalizes me.  On the other hand, I am beginning to question whether I can ever really tap into that market.  But as I already have a good number of products online, and I am building web traffic anyway, perhaps, in time I will reach the kind of sales that I consider successful. Again, the key to making print on demand work is in building traffic, and the dirty little secret of building traffic is the enormous amount of time it takes.

Skipping Coins For Motion Stock

Capturing a super slow motion video clip of a coin skipping across water for a visual supporting financial and money concepts.
  
Visual Impact for Financial Themes Through Slow Motion Video

In attempting to come up with motion clips of a conceptual nature that would be appropriate for shooting in super slow motion, one of our ideas was to capture a coin, in this case, a silver dollar, being skipped across a body of water. The idea would be that such a video clip could be used to add visual impact to themes that include monetary or investment skill, risk, venture capital, savings and so forth. 

Ambiguity and Versatility In Still and Motion Stock

Hopefully this clip is ambiguous and versatile enough to work with a wide variety of concepts. It has always been interesting to me that one of the traits that makes a stock image work is ambiguity. But it has to be ambiguity in a way that facilitates variety and at the same time, when combined with text or headlines, transforms into a clear, concise and specific concept.  This has worked will with me for still imagery, but I do not yet have enough experience to speak with confidence about the world of motion stock.

A Bare Bones Video Production

Shooting this sliver dollar-skipping clip was a bare bones operation. For the water we filled a black plastic concrete mixing container, purchased at Home Depot, with water. The container was about two-feet by three-feet in size and maybe eight inches deep. We moved in tight enough to fill the frame with water. I placed a large piece of foam core directly behind the water and bounced a 5000-watt tungsten light onto it. We had fill cards on either side of the water with enough room for me to skip the coin. We had a bare-bones operation. The camera and recording was handled by my partner Stephanie Roeser and my intern, Tom Penpark played the role of grip. I had the key part…skipping the coin. Though after about twenty tries on my part, Stephanie took over the coin tossing nailed it on her second try…oh well! We spent about a total of an hour from set-up through capture on this clip, plus a spinning coin falling into the water, a bar of soap hitting the water, and a very intriguing image resulting from shooting compressed air into the water. I haven’t edited any of those ancillary clips yet, but will post them to my site as I do.

GVS 9000 VTR and Efficient Video Capture

Our efficiency in shooting was due in large part to the GVS 9000 VTR hardware and software that we used to capture, store and playback our video. Amazingly, within seconds of a capture we were able to view our clips and convert them on the fly to the Pro Res format that we use to edit in Final Cut Pro. GVS made the process simple and satisfying! We captured the “skip” at 1900 frames per second and play it back at sixty frames per second.  The biggest problem was getting a skip that clearly showed as a coin while having an impact placement that allowed for all of the action (OK…most of it) to be seen.

Success In Motion Stock

Hopefully we have produced an ambiguous, versatile, captivating and yet still specific enough, video clip to make some money with. But whether or not it produces the desired income, we had a blast producing it…and that is half the battle! I am convinced that success in motion stock requires an enjoyment of the process even more than so with still images.

A Roll of the Dice, Motion Stock, and Revelations

A Roll of the Dice and A Slow Motion Revelation

One of the criteria I have for shooting slow motion stock video clips is whether or not the clip offers a revelation, a glimpse, or more, of something we haven’t seen before…an Aha! moment, if you will. Often it is difficult, or impossible, to predict whether an attempt will produce such a result. For example, at one point we decided to shoot a slow motion roll of the dice. The shot was extremely tight and our resulting depth of field only about as deep as the dice themselves. To try and keep the dice in focus we had to drop them from a very short distance. The first drop of the die resulted in a very minimal amount of action…obviously something not worth keeping. We checked the result of our capture anyway to get a sense of what we were up against. It was really cool! At one point one of the die hit, bounced up, and seemed to just hang there spinning in the air. It was a revelation!

Cactus Spines and a Bursting Bubble Video

Another revelation, even more delicious to watch, occurred when we captured a soap bubble slowly drifting down onto the spines of a cactus. I had my doubts about whether, even in slow motion, we could see anything interesting in a bursting bubble. I thought the speed of the bubble was too fast, but I was wrong. The first revelation happened as the bubble settled onto the cactus spines. I thought the bubble would burst as soon as the membrane was pierced. But that didn’t happen. You can literally see the spines poke through the walls of the bubble as it comes to a rest on the cactus skin.  Then came a second revelation. After a pause the membrane bursts outwards to the edges of the sphere, then back again to the center in a spray of liquid collapsing on itself. It kind of reminded me of an interstellar galactic explosion! Who knew!

Slow Motion Video at 1900 Frames Per Second

One of the keys to the success of the endeavor was our ability to shoot, with the Phantom HD camera at a frame rate of 1900 frames per second. Here I have to give a plug to my friends at GVS systems who allowed us to use their GVS 9000 VTR computer. It allowed us to capture the footage, review it in seconds, and convert the files to Pro Res files on the fly. Pretty awesome.

Bursting Bubbles and Bringing In The Bucks

Of course, one never knows what image or clip may turn out to be the one that brings in the bucks, but this clip can illustrate many concepts such as a bursting financial bubble, any sort of risk or impending doom, or even dramatic and sudden change. I even fantasize about using After Effects to put symbolic images on the bubble such as houses or dollar signs. But then, I would have to do a lot of learning to accomplish that...maybe down the road when I have more time. Yeah right!

A Thousand Visitors a Day: Taking Stock

Keeping up with SEO, social media, and creating images can be overwhelming, but in the long run will, I believe, be worth it!

A Thousand Unique Visitors a Day

I reached a sort of milestone last week. For the first time I had over 1000 unique visitors to my site in one day. My site had 1,041 unique visitors to be exact (though it seems that you have to take any of these figures with a grain of salt.).  It took me 26 months from the time I started my web efforts until I reached that thousand mark. But a thousand unique visitors a day is only a small stepping-stone, only a tenth of the traffic I am aiming for.

The Monetization of Web Traffic

What kind of monetization am I getting from this traffic? Two of those visitors yesterday e-mailed me with requests for licensing information on my images. Twenty-seven people reached my site and then went to the agencies carrying the stock photos they had searched for…though what happened then I don’t know.  I sold one coffee mug on cafepress.com. That was good for $1.50 profit. I also sold a meditating-dog T-shirt and made about $2.00. My advertising revenue came in at $7.56  for that day. That was about it.

Long Term Relationships

The “daily” benefits of increased traffic, however, are not as great as those occasional larger connections. I have secured three important long-term relationships by being found easily on the web…and each of those relationships represents a potentially quite significant amount of money. I have also had a smattering of print sales the occasional direct licensing of a stock image and so forth.

Encouragement and Disappointment

Overall, I am both encouraged and disappointed by my progress. Encouraged, tantalized even, by the results of my increased traffic, but disappointed by how much work it has taken, and by the fact that after all this time I have only just reached the thousand mark.

The Social Media Quandary

Then there is what I call the social media quandary. As facebook grows ever more pervasive I feel compelled to explore that avenue of connecting with prospects as well. But is the time well spent? My tactic at this point is to spend a bit of time each day, or nearly each day, and slowly understand how to utilize the medium. For me facebook is more of a way to create a fan base around my animal images than as a way to promote my traditional stock photos.

Creating New Stock Images and Staying Successful

As I have said before, if I had put all the work that I have put into my site into creating new stock images, I would definitely be earning more money at this point. But I still believe that in the long term the rewards for my web efforts will be much greater. An increased web is the best way I can think of to prepare for the changes that are happening, and that will continue to happen in ways we cannot know at this time. Finally, increasing my web traffic at helps gives me a sense of control over my own destiny…something very important in helping me keep a positive attitude that is vital for continuing to take the steps necessary to stay successful.

Motion Stock, An Exploding Piggy Bank, and An Important Lesson

 An Exploding Piggy Bank shot at 1000 frames per second.


Shooting Motion Stock

I recently completed a second round of shooting motion stock clips with a Phantom HD camera at frame rates of up to 1900 per second! I would not have gotten involved with this project was it not for the fact that I was given access to this rather expensive piece of equipment (to rent the set-up we used, the Phantom Camera with a GVS 9000 VTR computer and raid array, would have been in the neighborhood of $5,000.00 a day) in exchange for a percentage of the royalties. But even with the overhead of the camera taken care of, the time I put into the effort may not be worth it.  Luckily I enjoyed the process.

A Slow Motion Clips With Getty

The thing is that my previous set of slow-motion-clips is not earning that much money. Approximately a hundred clips with Getty are bringing in an average of maybe seven hundred dollars a month. On the surface that seems pretty good…but those clips took me two months worth of work. Now I saved something like $70,000.00 over what it would have cost me to rent the equipment…but I still have expenses including lighting, models, props and so forth. Most of that will be paid back in the first year. So for two months of my time I will be earning, after I divide the royalties, maybe three thousand a year…an amount that will, no doubt, decrease each year. For two months of work?

A Murky Profit Potential

Of course, like many photographers, I tend to forget a lot of the expenses involved. Like buying Final Cut Pro, hiring a guy to teach me to use FCP, hiring him again a few weeks later after I forget what he teaches me, buying a new hard drive to send the images in on, hiring a File Maker Pro expert to amend my database program to be able to split the royalties appropriately and so forth and so on! So the profit potential gets even murkier….

Extreme Slow Motion Clips and An Advantage

I thought that the extreme slow motion aspect of the clips would give me an advantage over others involved in creating stock footage, but apparently not. I even found a guy on iStockphoto who has shot pretty much everything we did, with the same camera and the same level of quality. On iStockphoto! Geez!

Shooting Means Editing

However, being the extreme optimist that I am, when the opportunity presented itself again, I dived in. I did come up with some pretty cool stuff and will be sharing some of it here on this blog (see above). But again, shooting for a couple of weeks means editing for a couple of weeks, and I am so slammed right now, particularly producing a new round of images for greeting cards, that I am only getting an hour or so of editing in every few days…this may take a while!

An Exploding Piggy Bank and The Value of Imagery

 One of the clips we produced, the above example of an exploding piggy bank, shot at 1000 frames per second, did produce a valuable insight for me, one that I suspect many of us photographers need to remind ourselves. As a photographer I love cool visuals, and I love to see that bursting piggy bank disintegrate in slow motion. I have watched it dozens of times, mesmerized by the flying coins and falling debris. But when I showed it to my brother he commented “Yeah, its OK to watch…once.”  So the problem here is that I may not have, probably don’t have, a realistic idea of the value of my imagery. Seems like an exploding piggy bank might be an apt metaphor!

Success In Commercial Photography and Understanding Reality

To succeed in the world of photography, of commercial and visual art, it is imperative that we have an accurate idea of the value of what we are offering. Without a firm grasp on the realities of our market, we will continue to make bad decisions, which will ultimately lead to our failure as businesses. If I really get it, really do understand the true value of what I am offering, which can be equally problematic in either overvaluing or undervaluing, then all the time I put into that latest motion stock effort will have been worthwhile!

Yuri Arcurs, Leading Microstock Photographer, Interviewed

Yuri Arcurs is the world's best selling microstock photographer...and shares his thoughts and experience on stock photography in the following interview.

Like most “traditional” stock photographers I wish microstock had never happened…but it did and now it seems to be the 600-pound gorilla of the stock photo industry. But as much as many of us blame microstock for the decline in our ability to earn a living, some individuals seem to have mastered the medium and are actually doing phenomenally well…and at the front of that pack is Yuri Arcurs.

Yuri is the world’s best selling microstock photographer…which probably means he is the best selling photographer period. His website is a treasure trove of information not just for those wanting to learn the business of microstock, but even for old timers such as me!

PDN named Yuri, one of the most influential photographers of the decade, Hasselblad sponsors him, he runs marathons, has a BA in psychology (which he apparently actually uses in his photography career), is a former member of the Danish Special Forces and is setting new standards for sharing information with fellow photographers. 

Yuri, can you give us a brief account of how you got into photography…and into microstock?

I have loved photography ever since I was a child. I believe I started doing photography in the sixth grade. When digital photography became accessible I slowly started thinking of it as having the potential of being more than just a hobby. While studying psychology at the University, I started shooting stock using my friends as models. Mostly just for the fun of it, but I soon saw great potential, especially in microstock. I started studying the subjects that sold the most: best themes, body language, specific model types, etc. Then I started setting up shoots based upon this research, and that’s when it all took off.

This might be a hard one to answer, but why do you think you have succeeded to such a degree when so many others have not?  Did you have a plan?  What did it really take?

I think my success is rooted in more than just one action or by me having a “special” plan, but two aspects stand out and are certainly worth mentioning: I started at exactly the right moment, so when I decided to go all in, the timing was perfect. If I had started my business in 2007 or 2008, I would have faced a much bigger challenge than I did in 2004/2005. I started doing microstock on a business level long before the established agencies saw microstock as a serious business, which was clearly to my advantage.

The stock community was a very closed community. I have always believed in the theory that open competition outmaneuvers closed communities and it was with this theory in mind that I basically decided to put all my eggs in one basket. Because that is basically what I did. I put all my eggs in one basket and won.

With this being said, of course I had a plan. You cannot go all in the way I’ve done it without having a plan. My goal was, and still is, to be the best, and I continuously work towards keeping this goal.

The stock industry is changing by the second…and is a much different animal than even when you started five or six years ago. Is it too late to get into the microstock game now?

The short answer would be yes. If you plan to be successful in this industry it’ll cost you an enormous amount of money, you will have to work 24 hours a day for several years, and you will have to be exceptionally skilled. You will also have to be more than just an extraordinary photographer and you will have to know the industry of stock photography very well. Of course, I won’t say that it’s impossible, but the industry is very competitive.

Some very accomplished traditional stock photographers have sampled the microstock waters… some have even gone way beyond just “sampling the waters”…and declared microstock unsustainable…yet you and others seem to be doing very well. What gives?

The traditional stock photographers are not evolving with the industry. They stick to traditional methods and they are not willing to produce as much as is required today. I don’t believe microstock to be unsustainable, but I do believe we will meet challenges in the time to come. We will have to evolve with the industry and if the older generation of stock photographers will continue to do microstock, they will have to keep up and probably rethink some of the more traditional methods of doing it.

iStockphoto seems to be pushing for photographer exclusivity. Could you give us your thoughts on exclusivity versus spreading your work around…and where you think the industry as a whole is headed in regards to such exclusivity?

I think that while the all-traditional industry had a big problem realizing and understanding when they were facing serious competition from microstock, the microstock non-exclusive agencies right now have a very serious lack in understanding the actual competition that they are getting from iStock. They don’t get how far ahead iStock is actually becoming and this could potentially be a problem over time. The microstock agencies are paralyzed by their own success and they can't evolve beyond the very simple business model of 2004/5. iStock can, and does so extremely well with multiple price brackets and levels, and with educational events for photographers that teach that "little extra". The problem is also that the primary CEO's of the non-exclusive agencies are amateur photographers at best and often don't know good design, good pictures from less good ones, and really don't care too much about the "whine" in the design world. iStock is way better at this and when we start getting out of our current economic crisis, they are prepared for nurturing the high paying customers. Non-exclusive agencies will be the "leftovers", but the CEO's will probably disagree to the grave, not realizing that they have been check-mated for a couple of years and iStock has been earning bulk in those years. It's sad, because if the non-exclusive actually started doing a higher price bracket, it would be followed up and demanded by the photographers that other agencies also do this and it would outpay iStock's programs because of the total volume of non-exclusive traffic.

I have chosen to be non-exclusive as this was clearly the smartest thing to do when I first started, but at the moment it is easier to compete when being exclusive with iStock. I suspect that this will change when the microstock agencies begin looking at iStock and how they do things. I think I’ll stay non-exclusive for the time being. Unless a convincing offer is made…none have been convincing enough so far. :)

You are known as the worlds best selling microstock photographer…and you participate in "macro" stock as well. How involved are you in macrostock?

I have about 7000 images in macrostock. And I plan to add at least 4000 images this year. So I think it’s safe to say that I’m very much involved with macrostock.

What are some of the important differences you have found between micro and macro stock?

Attention to detail. There are clearly much higher demands to things that go beyond technical quality in macrostock. Images in macrostock are more natural and often on a much bigger scale than in microstock. Microstock images, in general, contain more contrasting colors and the situations often seem more stylized.

With plenty of experience in both macro and micro under your belt, can you share any insights as to what the future looks like for one versus the other?

If the non-exclusive agencies don’t step up their game, I think we’ll see microstock becoming much less attractive to the buyers. Refined shooters will move to exclusivity and I will start selling primarily from my own site. I think macrostock, and especially iStock, will come to dominate the industry if things do not change.

With the staggering number of images that you have produced, how do you avoid cannibalizing your own work…or is that just not a problem?

I don’t avoid it, and it is a problem. I have to always strive to be better, and I am, but it’s an unavoidable problem. I do my very best to always do new situations and new kinds of shoots, but always to avoid doing something similar to my older work is impossible.

Many of us "traditional' stock shooters have a strong dislike for the search by download feature of microstock agencies because it facilitates the "copying" of best selling imagery. Does that bother you too…or do you have a different attitude about it?

Of course, it bothers me when people duplicate my work. It’s very frustrating to see your work being duplicated. But I understand the feature and I don’t dislike the feature itself. I dislike the people who use the feature to find my most popular images only to copy them. It’s scary how big plagiarism is in the industry and I think it’s a disgrace. People should be credited for their own work and their own talent - not the work and talent of others.

(John - if you want a good example of duplication, take a look at the image “Rock Guitarist. vector” (Image ID: 56152543) and my own “Rockstar with a guitar isolated” (Image ID: 27865846) on shutterstock.com)

It has never gone public, so it will hit like a bomb.
 

OMG! Pretty Blatant! And on the same agency…I agree that it is a disgrace!

There are plenty of rumors that your micro income has plateaued or even is falling due to the over saturation of images in the market. Have you found that to be true?

It is true that my return per image has decreased with almost 1 USD a year since 2009. My return per image topped at 9.1 USD in 2009, and in 2010 it topped at 7.10 USD. It is continuously falling and I expect it to top at 5.6 USD in 2011. My total income, however, is not falling, but this is only due to my working and producing like a mad man. I have doubled my portfolio in 2010, but this is, of course, not sustainable. I can’t continue to increase production like this forever, so something has to change. But as mentioned, I suspect the industry will change during the next couple of years.

If you had to single out one thing that is most important for success in microstock what would it be…. and is it the same for success in macro stock?

I believe that in microstock you can get far by knowing the right tricks, and in macrostock it’s more about knowing the right people. This is also why it is so difficult to get into macrostock.

Do you have a formula for the cost of production per image?

I don’t have a specific formula for the cost of production per image, but I find it very hard to produce an image for less than 20 USD.

Do you think personal branding is important either now, or in the future, for success as a stock photographer?

I think it is important, and I think it will only become more important in the future. I believe we, in the future, will see buyers getting bored by the microstock look. And this will probably make personal branding more important, if not necessary, if you want to succeed in the industry.

What role does Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, etc.) play in your business?  Do you believe it is essential for photographers to participate in?

Much of this industry takes place online and participating in the online discussions is very important to keep up with what’s going on. I don’t think it’s that much different from many of the other industries that change as fast as stock photography does. If you don’t read blogs, follow the discussions on Twitter, know what’s happening on Facebook, you won’t be up to date and you won’t be visible to potential buyers. The information flow happening on sites such as Facebook and Twitter is huge. If you, as a photographer, don’t participate in the online discussions, you will miss out on important trends and new ideas.

What would people be most surprised to learn about you?

When I was a teenager, I competed as a pro-gamer on the national team in Denmark. I can't say more. :) I learned some exceptional computer skills, which I have had great use of in both my work and personal life. And I secretly play sometimes and kick some online butt… :)

If you couldn't be a photographer what kind of work would you do?

I love my job and I would not want to do anything else! Where else can you deduct a floating rubber duck on your tax. :)

Are there any photographers that inspire you?

Hundreds. Tons. At the moment, though, I’m really interested in exceptional retouchers. No one mentioned, no one forgotten. I will leave it with that and not get in trouble. :)

On your website you provide a wealth of information on how you approach the business, on what to shoot, how to light and so forth. Can you also share with us your reasoning for sharing so much?

I have never been very protective about my knowledge. I have heard many stories about mentors hiding equipment and work from their interns and young apprentices. I have even heard stories about photographers misleading and lying to the young people who come to them eager to learn. I think it’s a disgrace, and I have never understood why people won’t share their knowledge with people who want to become better at what they do. I will gladly share tips and tricks with newcomers, and if the product of this sharing is more beautiful images and more talent in the industry, so be it.

Can you share a favorite stock photo of yours...and the story behind it?

This is the result of one of the craziest shoots I've ever done. I and
several of my assistants went to Tirstrup Lufthavn, which is about 1
hour from Aarhus here in Denmark. My goal was to capture a perfect
shot of a jet flying by.

It was a massive challenge: Lighting up the sky and catching the plane
at exactly the right moment when it was lit up perfectly by Profoto
lights powered by 24,000 watts of batteries. In between the jet's
passes, commercial airplanes were taking off and landing. It was
crazy.

I used my 39MP Hasselblad H3D-II mounted with a Hasselblad 28mm lens
and my custom made monopod (The Yuri Arcurs SteadyPod
http://www.steady-pod.com/scripts/prodViewnew.asp?idproduct=217), but
it still took me ages to get just the right image. We shot all day,
but when I finally got the image - after hours of frustration - it was
all worth it. And it was an amazing experience standing there with
planes flying right by you at a speed of several hundreds km/h.

You have plenty of instructional videos on your site…do you also engage in motion stock…or have plans to do so?

Yes. We have about 500 clips now.

Yuri, the future of stock photography…pessimistic or optimistic?

It really depends on the non-exclusive agencies now. It could be fantastic.

Do you have any final thoughts you would like to leave us with?

I have said too much already. I will probably get in trouble for this email. Tons of emails await. :)

To learn more about this amazing man, and see more of his work, visit his website: www.arcurs.com.